‘Collection of toothless threats’: Likud MK demands changes to proposed Haredi conscription bill

Likud MK Dan Illouz writes to Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth, also of Likud, to demand multiple changes to his proposed bill regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment, saying that he is unable to support the legislation as currently written.

“Unfortunately, the proposed law not only fails to create change but may even undermine the progress already achieved on the ground,” he writes, arguing that “in such a situation, it is better to leave the current situation than to pass a law that will lead to long years of non-conscription.”

“I cannot support a law that does not really bring positive change on an issue of an existential security need,” writes Illouz, who is one of the more outspoken critics of the legislation within the coalition.

Bismuth released the text of the long-awaited bill on Thursday, prompting criticism from within coalition ranks, opposition figures and legal advisers, including FADC committee legal adviser Miri Frenkel Shor.

The legislation, as currently laid out, would continue to grant military service exemptions to full-time yeshiva students while ostensibly increasing conscription among graduates of Haredi educational institutions.

Calling Bismuth’s bill “a collection of toothless threats” rather than effective sanctions against draft evaders, Illouz argues that it harms the socioeconomic integration of the Haredi public while not creating any real incentive to enlist.

Illouz demands the retention and strengthening of current sanctions rather than the imposition of “weak” sanctions in their stead, and calls for narrowing the definition of Haredi so as to prevent the “artificial inflation” of Haredi enlistment numbers.

He also argues that the law should set a minimum quota for how many Haredi recruits enter combat tracks and calls for the bill to recognize Haredi “hesder” yeshivas, which combine Torah study with a shortened military service.

“If these amendments are not made, the current situation is better than passing the current draft. The reality on the ground is already showing an increase in recruitment since real sanctions were imposed,” Illouz writes to Bismuth. “We must not enact a law that will set us back.”

Speaking with The Times of Israel last week, former Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein, another critic, warned that the coalition is set to exert significant pressure on the few lawmakers from its own ranks who are “strongly opposed” to the controversial legislation.

Asked if he has been subject to such treatment, Illouz tells The Times of Israel that “I haven’t been pressured.”